McCain and the Environment

Certainly Mr. McCain has been slower to gain favor with the youth vote, primarily because he is older than Mr. Obama -McCain is 72. However, despite his age, McCain's policies are aimed at allaying the fears of youth - namely the environment, the war, and the economy. I outline the first of these 3 policy areas below:

1. The Environment
-Mr. McCain certainly acknowledge that the US must break its dependence on foreign oil - however, until then, the US cannot cease oil production and exploration. He believes that we must utilize American's own vast resources to transition between the dependence of the past and the independence of our future. McCain has said "In recent days I have set before the American people an energy plan, the Lexington Project -- named for the town where Americans asserted their independence once before. And let it begin today with this commitment: In a world of hostile and unstable suppliers of oil, this nation will achieve strategic independence by 2025." (John McCain, June 25, 2008)
- Though exploring offshore oil drilling possibilities and our own domestic reserves of natural gas will help to lower costs now, McCain has plans to search for alternative energy sources and reward Americans who begin or continue to be environmentally-conscious.
-Mr. McCain plans to offer a $5,000 tax credit to Americans who purchase cars who have zero net carbon emissions. He will offer tax incentives to automakers to make cleaner cars and graduated tax credits for citizens who buy hybrid or other low-emitting vehicles - lower carbon emissions = higher tax credit.
-Mr. McCain will offer a $300 million dollar prize to the person/company who produces fully electric and gas-free plugin/electronic cars comparable in quality/life expectancy to gas-run cars.
- Mr. McCain supports increasing production of flex-fuel vehicles
- Mr McCain will help companies move past ethanol onto more promising alcohol-based fuels and cease over-subsidizing ethanol producing farms to the point that domestic products like food etc. are increasingly expensive. Mr. McCain will cease government support of special interest lobbies and instead focus on finding an alternative that works.
- John McCain will commit $2 billion/year toward clean coal initiatives
- He will increase the production of nuclear power plants, with the ultimate goal of producing 100 new plants.
- He proposes a Cap-and-Trade program that would limit carbon emissions from factories etc. while employing a free-market strategy.
-Mr. McCain will focus on "greening" the government, which is currently the largest consumer of electricity world wide. He will focus on applying newer efficiency standards and reducing electricity/gas costs and usage.
- McCain does not support a windfall profits tax. A windfall profits tax on the oil companies will ultimately result in increasing our dependence on foreign oil and hinder investment in domestic exploration. Jimmy Carter put a windfall profits tax in to place with little to no useful results.